"To give that many years for my country and to see it desecrated in such a despicable way angers me," Overbay said. "We have freedom of speech and to desecrate any kind of signs is absolutely despicable and a violation of the constitution of the United States."

That's a passionate defense of what he imagines the Constitution to be. /yes, the vandals are assholes

A reporter truly has not hit the nadir until accosted by a furious low-level political candidate for not covering a press conference announcing the candidate is *not* filing charges over stolen/defaced yard signs.

My mother in her garage has a McCain/Palin sign from 08. I was trying to get her to let me borrow it just to screw with people, but she would not let it go. She is too much of a die hard Republican, but did admit it would be funny to mess with people a bit.

IIRC there was a story about the same thing happening in VA yesterday. It's odd that the Democrats suddenly started a cross country arson spree against Romney signs.

If it wasn't for that I would say it was only a 50% chance that it was done by Republicans to counteract the bad publicity that comes with their people lynching Obama effigies and such. It seems conveniently timed to coincide with right wing media talking points.

nekom:Petty vandalism. Nothing more, nothing less. There is absolutely nothing more to it than that.

Are you kidding? It's obviously a calculated tactical maneuver by Obama's good squad to intimidate a good American patriot. This man said so himself, saying that burning the signs was a violation of the United States Constitution.

I would never try to claim that a random member of any sufficiently large group can't be a psycho asshat, but the right has gotten caught faking this stuff before and there does seem to be an amazing rise in similar events.

indylaw:nekom: Petty vandalism. Nothing more, nothing less. There is absolutely nothing more to it than that.

Are you kidding? It's obviously a calculated tactical maneuver by Obama's good squad to intimidate a good American patriot. This man said so himself, saying that burning the signs was a violation of the United States Constitution.

Does anyone know where the President was when these terrible attacks were happening? I hope he has a good alibi.

sprawl15:Knowing it's Florida, I can't even be sure that it's politically related.

Kids vandalize signs and other things all the time. Political signs being stolen or vandalized is pretty common. I know several people who would like to have Obama yard signs but figure they are more likely to attract vandalism that persuade anyone to vote.

The redneck mentality is pretty familiar to people in Florida and other parts of the South. If it was proved that a Republican burned both signs there wouldn't be any "you're not helping" meme going around, he would be seen as a hero.

I always vote for whomever I see the most political signs for, so this is a good strategy, one less sign , one less vote from me, so this is like Democrat voter suppression.

Citizen putting up a sign ok, but I always wondered why a business would put a political sign up, with the country so divided, how can that help the job creators? (Well, except one party might be more tolerant of the first amendment rights.)

GameSprocket:I would never try to claim that a random member of any sufficiently large group can't be a psycho asshat, but the right has gotten caught faking this stuff before and there does seem to be an amazing rise in similar events.

I just chalk it up to collateral damage in the culture war. Now, as for who started this round of the culture war, we can lay that square at the feet of the right-wing media and their echo chamber.

beta_plus:Even if it's not a false flag, It's not an act of hate when liberals do it.

Yes, it is. If a liberal did that, that liberal would be both an idiot and bad person. Most liberals would not defend the person who did that, regardless of whether that person is a liberal or that person turns out to be like the backwards-B girl from the 2008 election.

When I see these types of stories where a Democratic or Liberal does something despicable the arguement never seems to go how a conservative thinks it should.

Whether it's voter fraud or something like this, the Dem denounces it right away, but the Con wants to keep on pounding the point. It's like they have their talking points ready and can't stand not to get use out of them.

Put the shoe on the other foot, and the Con will not admit their "side" could do wrong, or, more often, they go the BSABSVR route.

Dinki:Here is the deal subby- Nobody is going to vote for Romney "because some meany democrats burned a Romney campaign sign".

Change that to "Not going to inspire enough people to vote for Romney to matter" and you're probably right.

MFK:to be honest, burning down someone's yard sign just seems like something that a conservative would THINK a liberal would do because that's what he would do if he had the balls.

Once again, proving that while the right understands the left almost perfectly, the left couldn't be more clueless about the right.

But then we don't have to lie to ourselves about what you think in order to make what we think seem more acceptable.

Far from a act of petty arson being something a "liberal with balls" would do it's something a sniveling little coward would do regardless of political beliefs otherwise. Whether it was a liberal that did it or some conservative wanting you to think a liberal did it, its a cowardly act by a cowardly person, period.